elephant art is popular

The drawing activity at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center was introduced and later supported by Nancy Abraham, Richard Lair and Alex Meiarmid of a team who developed the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project in New York USA.

Selected elephants have been trained there since 1997 and mahouts are closely involved with this activity. The drawing instruments are paints brushes, paper or cloth. Elephants are able to draw because of their flexible trunks which can clasp a brush that has been dipped into the paint by the mahout. Then, the elephants paint on the paper or cloth using their imagination. The colors are selected by the individual mahout. Each picture that is produced is varied and beautiful. After a while the elephants quickly paint with confidence.

The Thai Elephant Conservation Center has many intelligent elephants for example Pharatida, Lookkhang, and Lookkup. Their pictures are very interesting to visitors who are very kind when they see the paintings and donate money to the elephant artist. Visitors are thrilled to accept an elephant painting as a priceless souvenir. Besides paintings being sold at the Center, elephant paintings are shown in exhibitions attracting many visitors at many important hotels in both Bangkok and Chiangmai.